The Carobradler Mission
by KeepSmiling1
Summary: Written for International Wizarding School Championship Lily Luna Potter has a theory. A magical device found in almost every home is taking away the future's free-will. Can she prove her theory and put a stop to this evil?


Story Title: The Carobradler Mission

School: Durmstrang

Theme: 12 Grimmauld Place - Family politics and how they influence children (etc)

Year: 4

Special Rule: Genre I've not used before (Suspense/Family)

Main Prompt: An Infant's Crib

Additional Prompts: Lily Luna Lovegood, Dollhouse by Melanie Martinez

Wordcount: 2889

**A/N** AU Next Generation story with slight OoC components (implied that Harry is married to his work) and ages that do not match JK Rowling's statements; warning for the death of an OC via magic (non-graphic).

**The Carobradler Mission**

_Carobradler's Crib Creation Enterprise in the late 1400s was initially quite a successful venture indeed. Witches dismayed of ever being able to step away from their heirs and tired from the magical drain associated with early motherhood. With their magic acting as a sort of dummy for babes still getting used to the world outside the womb, new mothers loved this new device. The personalized baby bed was designed to keep a babe safe and imbued with the family magics, keeping the child content until it was time to care for the child's needs. Had these already fantastic cribs possessed baby-changing or feeding capabilities, this new device may well have caused a complete revolution in childcare; fortunately, it did not. _

_Unfortunately for Carobradler, his cribs were almost too well-made. Everyone wanted to have a Carobradler, but costs and good craftsmanship made it impractical to buy a new crib for each subsequent child. Within a few hundred years, all major family lines had at least a few Carobradlers to satisfy their heirs. Carobradler's craftsmanship ultimately led to his going out of business. The magic behind the device became lost to time, but the simple spell needed to bond the crib to the baby was passed down religiously, and the babe's safety and happiness were practically guaranteed until the next feeding. The Carobradler family name eventually faded into obscurity._

_Unfortunately, the Carobradler Crib was not originally intended for extended use; they certainly were not meant to last for hundreds of years. Unexpected consequences can be found in magical objects that are heavily used. In their original form, the Carobradler Crib likely only gave babes the impression of being embraced by the magic of their parents, providing a sense of security not dissimilar to being wrapped in a familiar blanket that smelled of home. The passage of time and frequent spell use allowed the magics to evolve until the babes held within were unexpectedly blessed. Bonded as they were to the cribs, children raised in wizarding households would now fall asleep to the soothing whisper of an impression of their ancestors' expectations for their life. Few indeed was the witch or wizard who could break away from the familial mould once raised in such a device. Indeed, those who did break away were almost always youth whose parents used the device sparingly or ones who were later discovered to have slept in a spell-damaged crib._

**_-_****Carobradler****_-_**

Lily Luna Potter paused in her writing; her head turned towards the innocuous crib on the other side of the room. She had it moved to her bedroom when she started this project. When she was told that her History of Magic summer assignment would be to write a report on the Wizengamot, she had anticipated some boring research in the public archives of the ministry and a finished result ready within the first week back. Getting the assignment done wasn't a problem. That paper was neatly packed away ready to be turned in once she returned. The project that stemmed from it, however… that was another matter altogether.

Wizarding politics were really broken into three groups - Light, Dark, and Neutral. Light families had an affinity for Light magic. This affinity caused Light families to have a distrust and even a hatred for Dark magic which they often sought to get outlawed or restricted in one manner or another. Dark families were naturally against this and used their political positions to fight for a more intent-based rather than magic-classification-based legal code. In her research, Lily learned that — from the perspective of Dark families — even the Unforgivables had benign potential. Avada Kedavra was meant to be a painless means of delivering the death penalty, and the Imperius Curse had been created to give professionals a means of preventing suicide attempts. The Cruciatus Curse was originally used as a treatment against paralysis. Neutral families had known creature ancestry and tended to side with whichever side held fewer anti-creature biases, as both Light and Dark families tended to have prejudices against non-humans. Some issues were not easily divided by political lines. The practice of muggle baiting was a semi-common pastime for both Light and Dark purebloods before the rise of You-Know-Who. Lily knew her dad had been quite shocked to discover in one of the family journals that his dad had "baited" his aunt and uncle on more than one occasion until Lily's grandmum put a stop to it.

Most of this wasn't surprising to Lily. What was surprising to her was the utter lack of movement between groups. In over three hundred years since its establishment — with the only exceptions being made in her dad's generation — Potters voted according to the Light agenda; Malfoys voted according to the Dark agenda; Zabinis voted according to the Neutral agenda (having a distant leprechaun connection). Other family lines were the same.

Lily could not help but feel suspicious about the consistency. Surely cases where a witch from one group married into another group would have led to some outliers. Her dad viewed it as just another example of tradition dictating wizarding society - strange, but benign. Her boyfriend, Lysander Scamander, disagreed. He had read in one of his grandmother's journals about the powers of heirloom cribs that influenced the babes within.

Together, the two scoured through the journal and read every obscure mention of the cribs that they could find at Flourish and Blotts. The result of their research was a solid theory… without any proof. That's why Lily was writing this article instead of working on her Potions assignment. If she could write a convincing enough argument, maybe she could convince her Runes Professor to let her do her final project on the crib sitting beside her. Lily was a woman on a mission….

If she could prove that Carobradler Cribs brainwashed children… she could perhaps, change the world.

"Lily dear, could you set the table?" came the gentle call of her mother, Ginny. Set the table? Didn't her mum understand the importance of her project?

"Come on out, Sis! Our cousins are here!" came the muted bellow from her brother, Albus. Lily could hear some of the younger cousins begging her to play with them. Before she could cave into the pressure, however, a gentle wind rocked the crib, reminding her of the goal.

That summer, Lily was rarely seen, and no one was allowed to enter her room. Lysander betrayed her by suggesting she take a break after a week into her self-imposed solitude. Mum and Dad were blind to the significance of her plans and felt her separation was nothing more than a phase. It was a school project. She was a Ravenclaw. Nothing unusual about that. Trays were left outside her door, and time crawled slowly by.

Draft after draft was written and discarded. None of them were good enough to convince her teacher that this was the only project worth working on. Her summer homework lay forgotten, a casualty to her obsession. It didn't matter.

What could be heard outside of her door only fueled her fervor more. Everybody played a role. Dad worked with Uncle Ron to stop Dark wizards from spreading their influence… never realizing that Dark did not mean evil, just a different type of affinity and political position. Mum took care of the house. Her brothers got into ever more severe antics, but it was okay; they didn't use Dark magic to accomplish their goals. Lily hated that this hypocrisy was so deeply ingrained in the world around her.

At Hogwarts, things were even worse. Her father, a man who had been her idol for so long, had caused changes with the defeat of You-Know-Who, but they only went so far. It was enough that Houses no longer dictated friendships, and the continued peace awarded students a greater willingness to interact with families regardless of their political leanings. The problem was that each side knew that _they_ were right, and heated political debates between upper-year students led to more than one detention. Lily, always an O student prior to this, struggled to feel engaged in any class other than Runes. Only a threat from her teacher that her project would be accepted _only_ if she passed her other classes — the final project being set to start after winter holidays, much to her displeasure — kept her from failing anything.

Socially, the fun-loving princess of Ravenclaw had disappeared. Friendships were strained but not enough to raise any red flags. NEWTs strained a lot of relationships, and Lily knew how to wear the mask when it mattered, such as in the Headmistress's office when her parents came bearing the oh-so-important crib.

What followed were months and months of working on her project. Lily discovered that her professor was a distant relation to the Carobradler's. She was given access to ancient notes on the process used to make the devices—notes that only made her more certain that her conclusions were correct. Her professor also helped her to plan out the steps and write up her project in a professional manner. By the time Lily was ready to implement the spellwork that would prove her theory and lead to the destruction of the cribs, she had over two hundred pages ready to be submitted.

**-Carobradler-**

Before beginning this final stage, the step that would cause her name to be hailed as a savior of freewill, Professor Bradler told her that she had far surpassed NEWT-level and, success or not, her thesis could likely be submitted for a Masters in the subject. Lily activated the first of the series of runes bolstered with this knowledge. She activated the second and the third. The room hummed with magical activity, and the last runes activated in a domino effect from there. All was going according to plan. Any moment now, the crib would glow, glow the sickly green of mutated magic that would prove her conclusions correct.

It stayed the same. The only glow came from the candles lit around the room. Lily's knees almost buckled from magical exhaustion and confusion. Lily turned to her teacher for answers. Even if the results weren't what she expected, everything she knew about runic magic said that _something_ should have happened. She had gone over the runes a million times; it was impossible that she had made a mistake with the formula.

A wand was pointed at her head. Professor Bradler watched her confused expression with amusement. "Funny thing about family artifacts shared for research… the family gets to pick and choose what is shared. Same with teachers really. I'm surprised your father didn't warn you to be wary of overly helpful teachers. Rumor has it that he had some interesting teachers during his time here." Bradler's harsh laugh echoed in the dimly lit classroom. "You are an idealist, girl! You're sticking your nose where it doesn't belong, much like your father...hmmm...perhaps the crib you hate has had a larger impact on who you are than you thought."

Lily hated the idea that the crib could have influenced her, and the implication that the crib's nefarious impact on children might not be accidental after all terrified and confused her.

"What's to be gained by forcing children into a mould? What could your ancestor have possibly hoped to achieve by influencing generations to follow the pattern of the ones before? Is it so bad that we forge our own way in the world? The ones who have managed it..."

"You mean the poor souls who were forced to use cribs that suffered spell damage or the ones who lacked the magic on their side to power them up, dear? Ha! Paving a new path is a journey of pain and suffering for all involved. My ancestor, August Ollivander, the creator of the Carobradler Cribs lost everything, everything because of the chaos that came from this free-will you seem so bent on bringing back. Friends and family turned away from him for no reason more significant than a willingness to try new materials in wands. That forced him to reinvent himself as Connor Carobradler. The cribs, they came into being when he met his wife, Annabelle Snider, the owner of an orphanage for children who were abandoned for having affinities that their parents felt would look poorly on their good name. Connor and his wife created the cribs to ensure that children would no longer have to suffer for being too far outside the acceptable mould. Some well-placed wandwork made the first families amenable to the idea; eventually, the benefit of babies being able to be separated from their parents made it a must-have device." Bradler's eyes shone with a sort of manic pride.

"Society can adapt. It can improve itself given the chance. Is it so wrong to give it that chance? Connor Carobradler's choice has left us stagnant, unable to change for the better. Can't you see that?" Lily begged, her last bid at convincing a teacher she had once adored. All the while, she prepared herself should defense become necessary. The ritual had left her magic in a weakened state but dodging she could still do, hopefully.

Unfortunately, Bradler saw her inching away and was angered at hearing another claim that her ancestor had been in the wrong. A small part of her had hoped that the child would come to understand after hearing the story. That's what the runes were supposed to do after all...bring an understanding of the inner workings of the device inside. A skipped lesson on the dual meanings of one of the runes caused Lily to use a rune that would make her more susceptible to the reasons behind the magic rather than remaining a truly objective party, however. It seemed that that plan had failed. No matter. There were plenty of spells that would help the brat forget this whole thing...couldn't risk her continuing her studies and finding out how to destroy the cribs after all.

In seeming slow motion, Professor Bradler began the incantation and Lily backed away just a little too far. The spell caused her to fly back into the runic circle and onto the crib inside. The glow that had been meant to occur at the beginning of the ritual now flared up, and a mist seemed to go out from the cradle into the nearest host, an unconscious Lily Luna Potter. For Professor Bradler, things couldn't have worked out more perfectly. Casting a final _Obliviate_ to be safe, the professor prepared to bring the girl to the infirmary. Suddenly, Lily arose from the remains of the crib, seemingly as though she had never been asleep. In an unrecognizable Voice, she intoned, "The weak link of Carobradler must be destroyed in order for the legacy to live on in a new bloodline. You have disgraced your ancestors. Your punishment awaits!" Magic far beyond the capabilities of young Lily released in a tidal wave against the professor. Her hastily erected shield was incapable of protecting her.

**-Carobradler-**

The death of the Runes professor was eventually deemed a rune accident gone wrong. Lily used a good portion of her savings buying up the estate of Professor Bradler and studying it. The explosion caused by Lily's final project meant that she did not quite qualify for her mastery though she eventually achieved a dual mastery in both Charms and Runes under another master. Her thesis project revolved around the creation and refurbishing of Heirloom Cradles. Her first creation was made using elements of the old Potter crib and a crib from Bradler's estate. Her line, now a part of the Scamander line, would ensure that Carobradler's magic would live on to keep everyone in their place. The Voice would see to that.

Ultimately, Lily became the breadwinner of her family. Married to her work, her main contribution to the raising of her children came by ensuring their cribs were at their most powerful. Lysander might have objected, but an overpowered feel-good charm can be almost as powerful as the _Imperius_ if done right. Lysander's position was that of a caregiver. He ignored the absence of his wife without ever feeling the lack due to frequent use of the charm. When his children turned into pranksters that occasionally crossed the line, he only had to think of their uncles to know they had come by it honestly. There was no reason to get upset; it wasn't as though they were using Dark magic after all. Lysander was satisfied with his lot in life. Tradition and his wife's happiness were all that mattered. Theirs was the perfect family.

Before Lily passed on, the Voice that had been her constant companion for as long as she could remember encouraged her to draw one last rune on the crib. The Voice's host had become weak and feeble. It needed to ensure that it would be able to bond with a new host in the next generation. That night was the first and last that Lily would experience without the Voice encouraging her every step since she was a teenager. Potters might stick their noses where they don't belong, but the Voice would ensure that this branch always did so in an effort to protect the cribs.


End file.
